oreoremix42

Think It can be done. Has anyone done it yet? I have had a chance to take a good hard look at it. I am fine cutting a hole bigger and doing a little bit of customizing to make it sound, but thinking of less work. Its either that or build a special setup for the trunk.

RedDragons

i think 6x9s sound like garbage, your better doin a component set or a 6" woofer than a 6x9. if you want bass add a sub.

KaneoheKoa

Gotta remember that 6x9 speakers were designed for a rear deck, with the trunk as the speaker enclosure. They'll sound flat and constricted in the front door. Go with component 6's in the front, or even a high quality 6" coaxial and a good amp. No metal need be cut, just some wood mounting baffles made (1/2" plywood is good enough). Stock grill will work fine. Add a good sub (size depends on how much bass your want and location).

jjos1

iTrader: (1)

You would deffinitly get better sound out of a good set of 6.5" Components than a 6x9" I had 6x9s in the door of my srt and swaped them out to 6.5" and got much better sound range.

oreoremix42

I already have 6.5 in the doors. Pioneer 3ways, but I picked up a set of 6x9s for more of a mid bass. The 6.5 don't give off enough in between. I have a lot of bass with my subs and a lot of highs since I have 6 tweeters in the car. I have had 6x9s in other cars before and love them. No issue with the 6x9s its just a matter of where I should put them. The trunk would be a lot more of a hassle I cna say that for me.

KaneoheKoa

I see that you're running Pioneer 12's and an Alpine 500 watt amp. I would be interested in knowing a few more details.
1. Crossover point of the subwoofers (Freq when they start to play)
2. Crossover point of the 6.5" (low side freq roll-off)
3. Is the Alpine amp powering all the speakers or just the subs?
4. What is powering your front speakers?
5. Besides the front 3-ways and the subs, what other speakers are running and their power source.

In case you're wondering why I'm asking a lot of questions is to find out as much detail as possible about the hows and whys of the system.

oreoremix42

I have 4 pioneer 3 ways. The rear is being powered by a amp that a friend gave me until I can afford a good amp for all 6 speakers. I have 2 amps alpine for the subs and another not sure the brand for the rears at this point. Its a 2 channel. I have just been to lazy running the fronts to the amp since its been cold and ive been busy, so the deck is powering the fronts. And also I am not sure of the other questions.

KaneoheKoa

Thanks for the info, Oreoremix. I can see an immediate problem: only HU power to the fronts. Your fronts will always be your main source of sound and requires a good amount of clean power. There's no wonder why your 6s have no midbass: no power. A HU amp will say it has 50w of power, but it's not strong enough to really give the fronts any push and clarity. Your 6's in the rear door are muffled by the front seat and bench seat (BTW, the seats are designed to absorb sound, making the car quieter and thus more attractive to a buyer). In the end, you have a huge amount of energy going to the subs, but little going to everything else. Going to a 6x9 will only add 1 dB of volume to your fronts, which is to say, a tiny amount.

A word about 3-way single chassis speakers. They are not the same as component speakers. The great majority of 3-way speakers play this way: woofer plays full range, the midrange plays mids and highs and the tweeter plays highs. Only the tweeter plays it's best range, the woofer and mid are forced to play (and waste energy) sounds outside it's best performance range. Ever hear a woofer play full range? Okay bass, fuzzy mids, dull highs. The advantage of a 3-way design is it's attractive price and apparent promise of great sound. But they fail in the latter. A component 2-way system costs more for less speakers, but sounds better because of it's crossovers: the woofer plays only bass to lower mids, the tweeter plays mids to highs, with almost no overlap between them. Each speaker plays it's best range, making best use of the power from the amp, giving you the power in the sound you need. Oh, and 3-way components? They're out there, and they cost a bundle, more than 2x of a 2-way (crossover gets really complicated and a lot more parts).

My recommendation: invest (think of the long haul) in a good set of 2-way components. When you do get that 6 channel amp, make sure the gains between the mains (front/rear door) and subs result in a seamless transition between them. If someone plays a keyboard solo from high to sub, the sub should not suddenly jump out at you. And take your time planning and installing your upgrades. Rushing costs money and performance. Have fun building great sound!

oreoremix42

I paid almost next to next for all my door speakers, so as of right now I am very happy with my speakers. I don;t need anything crazy. Yea I know the fronts are under powered I just need to have time and desire to run the speaker wire! haha thanks for the time put into that!

mrmondaynight

You guys clearly know nothing about speakers or only have experience with your run of the mill 6x9's

oreoremix42

If your so smart why don't you spread some knowledge?

RedDragons

I've got plenty of experience with 6x9s I just dont like them. And like the previous post, if you have knowledge, lay it on em..

To elaborate on the 50wx4 most decks claim that is a max power. RMS power is what you always want to look at. On average most aftermarket decks with be somewhere between 12-20wx4 not nearly powerful enough to power anythng but a basic speaker. Especially not 6 speakers + tweeters. If you hookup 6 speakers to your deck your going to through off your ohm load (since I'm assuming they wont be running in series) and overdrive the baby amplifier inside your deck.

mrmondaynight

6x9's are given a bad rap mainly because there are so many cheap ____ty ones on the market. Comparing like quality speakers, I'd rather have a 6x9 than a 6.5. The bass response alone would be much better since you have the cone area of a 9".

There are a few really good 6x9's on the market. The Image Dynamics XS69 has gotten rave reviews. I ran 2 of them in the doors of my rsx years ago and they were phenomenal speakers.

Now if you guys are talkin' about speakers like these then i'd agree


But t

Greg S

iTrader: (1)

95% of the 6x9 on the market are designed to be mounted infinite baffle in the trunk of a car. They need that air space to reproduce the bass as that is how they are built. Are there really good 6x9s out there? Sure, but they are few and far between. Most manufacturers don't bother developing really good ones as ovals aren't the best device to reproduce sound waves with, they are a compromise. ID isn't most manufacturers. I am speaking with experience in this as I spent 20+ years in audio, 15 of it in car stereo.

The nice thing with the xB2 is that you can fit an 8" in the front doors with very little work and there are many more choices for good 8s than 6x9s. I still wouldn't run them below 60 Hz. though, just not enough air space. That is where the sub should take over.

KaneoheKoa

For me, 6x9 speakers suffer from 2 major flaws, even the higher quality ones.
1. Uneven cone displacement forces. It is incredibly hard to make a speaker cone move evenly all at the same time in a oval design. this sets up unwanted resonances that muddy up the primary signal. Round drivers don't have this problem.
2. Poor crossovers. The great majority of 2 & 3-way multi-axial speakers use very simple high pass crossovers (capacitors). Woofers run full range (bass-mid-highs) or may have a simple low pass coil with a 1000hz 6dB/octave slope. Mids play mid and highs (high pass cap) and may, but rarely have a coil to roll off the highs), tweets have a cap to block bass and mids (at a shallow 6dB/octave slope). So you have the woofer and midrange playing sounds they weren't designed to play cleanly muddying up the sound. To get clean response off the various drivers, you need to use a 12dB crossover slope or better. But they suffer from 90 & 270 degree phase shifts, again muddying the sound. Correctable, but at tremendous cost. Good 3-way spkrs are hard to come by in car or home audio. That's why the great majority of home & car spkrs are 2-way components, using 12dB (or 18 & 24 dB octave slope crossovers w/ phase compensation, very expensive) slopes.

I can say this thanks to; home audio sales from 1976 to 2004, car audio from 1990-2000, lead speaker enclosure designer for car audio shop 1991-2000, designed and built from scratch 5 speaker systems, including horns, tapered pipes, ribbon, and line array, more than average working knowledge of using Theil-Small parameters. Designed and built 3-way passive crossovers with phase compensation (not 180 degree compensation, but 90 and 270 degree phase shifts).

So, I have a little knowledge of speakers.